Will this result in a non booting OS?

[sdowney717]

Ok, installed mint 18 in a PC with 3 other drives, on its own drive, boots ok.
Grub installed to another drive.

Now I pull mint drive and stick in another PC with only that mint 18 drive in the PC, will it boot?

And if not, then how to fix, reinstall OS in the other PC with that single mint 18 hard drive?

[Pierre]

if the Grub Loader is on the drive that you pulled out,
then Yes - the machine simply won't boot up.
- that could also be a drive that is different to where the LinuxMint system is located.

and if you then stick that drive into another machine,
then it will only boot that drive, if the Grub Boot Loader is also on that drive.
- along the LinuxMint system, as well.

if that didn't work, then you would have to re-install the Grub Boot Loader,
onto that single mint 18 hard drive, in order to get it to boot up.

[gold_finger]

Ok, installed mint 18 in a PC with 3 other drives, on its own drive, boots ok.
Grub installed to another drive.

If I understand correctly, Mint is installed to its own physical hard drive in PC#1, but the grub boot loader is installed on one of the other three. Correct?

Now I pull mint drive and stick in another PC with only that mint 18 drive in the PC

Now you have PC#1 with the three other drives still in it and PC#2 with only the Mint drive.

will it boot?

Not sure which PC you mean, but ...

• PC#2 won't boot because grub is not installed on it.
• PC#1 (Assuming a non-UEFI situation here.) Presumably grub is now in control of booting computer from MBR of one of the 3 drives. Menu choices for remaining OS on this computer won't work because second stage boot files needed to complete boot process are now on Mint drive in PC#2.

And if not, then how to fix

PC#2 Fix -- use live Mint USB/DVD to install grub to MBR of the hard drive.

PC#1 Temporary Fix -- put Mint drive back in to be able to boot into whatever OS is on other drives.

PC#1 Permanent Fix -- use restore procedure for whatever OS is on computer (Windows/Mac) to restore its boot loader to MBR of boot drive (wiping out grub there).


P.s.
If everything on PC#1 was installed in UEFI mode (including Mint when you installed it), then disregard everything I just wrote -- you've got a whole different ball of wax then.

[trytip]

try it then you will know. certainly you will not expect the installation to configure the hardware for the new computer unless they are all plug and play with the kernel installed on the hard drive you want to remove and install in a new pc.

[Spearmint2]

don't you long for those days you could push a floppy in, boot to it, then in DOS just type sys a: c: and be done with it?

[sdowney717]

anyone have a quick link to install grub from a live usb as I am sure it will fail to boot on pc#2
Although it may be easiest to just install it again to pc#2.
Or pull all cables on pc#1 to the other drives.

[gold_finger]

On PC#2, boot live USB/DVD, open a terminal.

If you don't already know which partition on Mint HDD is the root partition, use either of these commands to look at partitions and find out what it's called (ie. /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc.):

Code: Select all

sudo blkid -c /dev/null
sudo parted --list

Now mount that root partition to the live environment (substitute correct device letter and partition number for "XY" in command shown):

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sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

Install grub with this command (substitute correct drive letter for "X" below):

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sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sdX

Unmount root partition.

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sudo umount /mnt

Close terminal, shutdown live USB/DVD, reboot (without USB/DVD) and installed Mint should now boot.

P.s. Here is a link to Ubuntu page describing same steps as above: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2 ... D_terminal.

[gold_finger]

don't you long for those days you could push a floppy in, boot to it, then in DOS just type sys a: c: and be done with it?

When floppies really were "floppy". And computers actually came with full manuals, for just about every part in it.